James Ilgenfritz

Exploring the solo contrabass

For half a century or so, jazz had been a collective artistic form. When ace saxophonist Coleman Hawkins recorded a completely solo paraphrase of "Stardust" under the title "Picasso" in 1948, it was considered a marvelous one-time oddity that only the master could lay down. Twenty years later, a young double bass player named Barre Phillips revived this